


Ring Around the Rosie

by inbarati



Category: Fairy Tales and Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-14
Updated: 2010-04-14
Packaged: 2017-10-08 22:54:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/80336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inbarati/pseuds/inbarati
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They all fall down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ring Around the Rosie

_Ring around the rosey_

From the time she was a small child, her favorite color was red. It was the color of her grandmother's hat, her mother's lipstick, the poppies that grew in the back yard, and the maraschino cherries that stained her lips and fingers. She had a dozen red dresses. The women whispered. Red was no suitable color for a child. It was then that they began to call her Scarlet.

 

_Pocket full of posies_

Scarlet grew intro a willowy young woman with a gift for herbs. The young men of her village began to court her. She chose the one who brought her the reddest roses she had ever seen. She was fair with hair the color of sunlight, he was dark with hair the color of freshly turned earth. They had a child with hair the color of poppies. It was then that they called her witch.

 

_Ashes, ashes_

The child was three when the priests came to the village. The whisperings of Scarlet's power had reached their ears. The wives and grandmothers of the village told of the red-haired child, and the herbs that could be used to poison, though Scarlet never used them for ill. The priests convicted her as a witch, and sentenced her and the child to burn.

_All fall down_

Scarlet's husband killed two of the priests on the day they came to take the child away. He took the child and hid in the mountains to the west. Scarlet was caught and burned. Her husband and child died in the mountains. That was the beginning of the sickness is the village. They attributed the poppy-colored rashes to Scarlet's power as well. The priests succumbed before they were able to leave the village, and every one of the wives and grandmothers eventually died of the dreaded disease.

 

The poppies still grow in the village, and the herbswoman is an elderly woman who came after the illness had run its course. Those that survived will not allow the word "witch" to cross their tongues. Never another woman was burned in Scarlet's village. It is said, in other villages, that travelers lost in the mountains may find a small child with flames for hair to lead them out. Those who live in their shadow, however, are silent.


End file.
